


with the magic of our eyes and the silence of our words

by jcksonmaine



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Gen, M/M, it's half canon half something else, of what the hell this is going to be, sort of??, there is sort of major character death not Not Quite it's a whole thing, y'all ever watch the movie hancock? well don't but just read the notes on here for info
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:40:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27275068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jcksonmaine/pseuds/jcksonmaine
Summary: One day, Joe stops healing. Then, like clockwork, Nicky stops healing too. Or, so it seems, but the terms of their newfound mortality seem to be on shaky ground, and it's ground neither of them know how to stand on, especially when the only thing that seems marginally clear is how mortal they are suddenly depends on how close they are to one another. [a.k.a an au based very VERY loosely off of that movie Charlize Theron was in where she's a tired heartbroken immortal who suddenly loses her immortality. oh, the old guard? no, no, we're talking about Hancock (2008). more details about plot and how it works in this fic in the end notes!]
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 1
Kudos: 39





	with the magic of our eyes and the silence of our words

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna die the exact same day as you  
> On the Golden Gate Bridge I'll hold you hand  
> And howl at the moon  
> Scrape the sky with tired eyes  
> And I will come find you
> 
> \- Brandi Carlile, I Belong to You
> 
> (look at end notes for au explanation)

In certain ways, Nile’s new family reminds her of the one she had to walk away from. Some days Andy is like her mother—focused, putting a guard up to her pain and maneuvering the world with a practiced strength which contained a warmth they weren’t quite aware of. Other days Andy is like her brother in that, well, Nile simultaneously would do anything for her and also wants to beat her ass, though having sibling-like feelings for a six-thousand year old warrior was a little hilarious if she let herself think too long about it. Both make her fond of her in an almost frustrating way, the way family does.

But Joe and Nicky? They remind her of her grandparents, her father’s parents. They were always a presence in her life, more so after her father was gone, desperate to still have the pieces of their son’s life in theirs. They were in the kind of love that Nile longed for as a kid, the kind she thought everyone had until she learned as an adult that it is a rarity in a heartbreaking world that should be cherished. They were married for fifty-five years, they always looked at one another as if they were still in high-school, giddy and freshly in love. They knew every detail of the other’s likes, their hates, their pains, they were part of the other’s soul, and yours brightened by watching how they connected. They had spent their entire adult lives together; it was impossible to picture them without each other. Joe and Nicky carried the same energy—as a child, fifty-five years was an impossible number to Nile, and as an adult well-aware she’ll hit that number and more, nine-hundred years still seems implausible to wrap her head around. Everything Joe and Nicky do is in sync, like they can read each other’s minds, like if you took one of them away the other would vanish like a law of the universe requires it.

Of course, Nile’s grandparents were regular, mortal humans with normal life spans, their end point was tragically faster. Her grandfather died first. In his sleep, peacefully, the best option one could ask for if they had to choose, but that doesn’t make it hurt less. Her grandmother comes to stay with them after, at her mother’s instance, but her grandmother doesn’t say much. The spark she had in her eyes even as an old woman is gone, replaced with a gentle tiredness of someone who knows part of her is missing. Slowly, she becomes less present, but she knows she wants to dance with her husband, that’s all she asks for in the time she has left. It’s only a few months really, between them. The family all know her broken heart takes her, they don’t have to discuss it, it just is. But the look in her eyes when she’s by herself is not an expression that is lost on Nile, it’s one that she remembers well through the rest of her life.

She sees it on Nicky now. Joe wasn’t dead—currently, in fact, he’d be fine—but he hadn’t stopped bleeding when he should have, and in Nicky’s mind that seemed to be close enough. It was as if something had snapped in his mind, and he went from a moment of panic into silent rage. The man who hurt Joe didn’t even have enough time to consider his life choices before he was dead, along with many armed counterparts. Eventually once everyone was down, Nile watched Nicky move like a train coming off its tracks, not sure where to go but aiming for destruction where he could find it.

Nile moved to go toward him when Joe pulled himself up off the floor, grabbed Nicky’s arm with one hand and cupped his face with the other, both of them ignoring the blood covering each of them. Joe’s voice was gentle, shaking but sounding practiced. “ _Nicolò, basta.”_

Nicky relaxed immediately at Joe’s tone, looking down and moving to touch where Joe was still bleeding. He flinched back like it could touch him back before putting a hand down against it, leaning closer and putting his forehead against Joe’s, them staying that way as if they were having a conversation they’d thought about many times before, one that Nile wasn’t allowed to here, not now. Nile swallowed, trying out the even tone her mother had bestowed on her for when you know others need it. “We need to leave, guys. Come on.”

They stole a car and went back to the safehouse that Andy had been begrudgingly left at. Nicky had started to patch Joe up before Andy took over wordlessly, gently pushing Nicky out of the way and Joe exchanging a look with him that told him to listen. Now, Nicky was sitting in the living room, still covered in blood and carrying the distant look of someone who is just barely trying to keep their shit together, and Nile is trying to figure out what the hell she can even say to him.

Nile sits down next to him, looking him over and opening her mouth to say something, anything, and coming up short. She closes it again, fidgeting with her hands, and takes a breath. “Look, I…I don’t know if this is the kind of thing you want right now, but…I’m not sure what else to do so, can I hug you?”

Nicky looks at her, grey eyes still completely blank, and she regrets the question. He raises his eyebrows, glances down at himself and then looks at her again. “You want to hug me…like this?”

She looks down at the blood on him and laughs before she can help it, covering her mouth quickly. “That’s a good point, but…yeah. If you need it. Do you need it?”

His face shifts for a moment, like there is a list of things he actually wants in his head that is one line long, and her hugging him isn’t on it. Still, Nicky swallows and nods, voice low. “Sure, yes. Please.”

Nile nods and moves closer, very carefully wrapping her arms around him. Slowly, Nicky leans into her and hugs her back, like it takes him a moment to remember that it’s what he’s supposed to do. She rubs his back and pulls away after a moment, trying to smile for the sake of them both. “It’s going to be fine. We already have to be careful with Andy, we’ll be careful with him too.” She says, knowing fully well it’s different. Outside of what a logistical pain in the ass it would be to have just the two of them doing high-risk jobs, it was different emotionally too. Not even just for Nicky, but for her too—she had just met all of them when Andy became mortal again, it was something she was now used to maneuvering, but the thought of Joe not being around is new and fresh, and it makes her chest hurt. She considers this and looks at Nicky again, exhaling. “On the other hand, we can work making ourselves feel the positives later. Right now, we could drink.”

-x-

Nicky takes up Nile’s offer for alcohol with a bit more fervor than he normally would. He downs a couple drinks in decently quick succession, and Nile gently suggests he should go shower and change instead of offering him another. He pulls clothes out of one of the duffel bags he and Joe still have sitting on the dining room table, and stands in the shower watching the blood wash down the drain. _Some of it is his._ He closes his eyes and tilts his head up to let the water cover his face, focusing on the white noise of the shower head.

He dries off and gets dressed without cleaning in the mirror once, too terrified to see what he actually looks like, if the outside matches the inside at all. Enough years on the planet had given Nicky the usual ability to see things for what they are, even if they hurt, to pull them into his chest and keep them there for safety, to try to soften the blow for everyone else. This was a skill that was one of his main assets to a team unit, as he saw it, the means to maintain a stable presence where it was needed. He couldn’t do that now. He would later, when Joe needed him to do it, when he could pour out all the love he was desperate to give in the moment. But for now, the problem was that even if he could have forced himself to keep an even way about himself, everyone would be looking at _him_.

Andy and Nile both love Joe, but he isn’t etched into every part of their self, he isn’t all they have and all they will ever need. So, when the chips fell where they may, they would both be looking at him, at his reaction, and what he needs, and what Nicky needs currently is to be invisible. Even the concept of Joe dying before he does requires a level of grief that wasn’t meant to be witnessed, not even by people he considers to be his family. He wants _his Yusuf_ and only that, or he wants to be not at all until that is what he gets.

Nicky slides down to sit on the bathroom floor, he glances down at the maroon shirt he put on, loose around his chest and his torso, a solid indicator that it’s actually Joe’s. He pulls it up around his nose and breathes in, pulling a knee up to rest his head on it and closing his eyes. He stays that way for a moment, briefly getting to feel invisible, incapsulated only by the scent of the love of his life, until the door flies open and Nicky’s head flies back up.

“ _Shit—”_ Andy hisses, looking at him on the floor for a moment, both of them slowly relaxing. She looks him over, expression softening before she looks away. “I just needed to wash my hands off. He’s…he’s good now, it wasn’t as bad as you thought.”

Nicky blinks, watching her as she goes over and turns on the sink. “It was pretty bad, Andy.”

She sighs, rinsing her hands off. “Or, you were freaking out, so you thought it looked worse than it did. He’s fine, Nicky. You can just…go spend the rest of your lives on the beach or something, like an old gay couple, that’s what you are anyway.” She turns to dry her hands off and Nicky stares at her. Andy’s way of trying to deflect from her own feelings is brutal bluntness, and he knows that well enough to try his best not to take it personally. She tries to ignore his gaze, looking anywhere but at him. “Look just…go sit with him, stop sitting on the bathroom floor.”

She turns to leave, and Nicky keeps watching her, speaking like his voice is something far away. “Andy?”

Andy turns and looks at him, running a hand through her hair. “Yeah?”

He hesitates when she meets his eye, fidgeting with Joe’s shirt. “We should go back. To trying to find Quynh. We should.”

Their eyes stay locked for a moment, a specific understanding they don’t need to talk about, the knowledge of where the suggestion came from. Andy works her jaw, forcing in any words she wants to say, well aware it isn’t the time. She turns back to the door, speaking as she walks out. “Go see him, leave me out of it.”

Nicky swallows as the door closes, leaning his head back to stare at the ceiling. He pulls the long sleeves of the shirt up over his hands and brings them up to his face, inhaling before sobbing.

-x-

Andy still gets pissed off that the three of them have barred her from high-risk jobs. She’s aware enough that she’d be a distraction in their eyes to not push back, but that doesn’t make her less angry. When they show up with Joe bleeding and not healing, then she’s just angry with herself. There’s the logical side of her brain that knows that even if she had been there it wouldn’t have changed a single thing, but the hyper responsible side of her never cared much for logic, it still feels as if it’s on her.

On top of her overriding concern for Joe, she also can’t handle looking at Nicky for longer than a second without it hurting. So she kicks Nicky out and takes over patching Joe up herself. The wound looks slightly smaller once Nicky leaves, and she rides it off as some of the pressure leaving her body. She looks at Joe and watches as stares at the door after Nicky leaves. Andy tries to smile and looks back down at her work, taking a breath. “So, you get to be in the boring mortal club with me now. Sucks, doesn’t it?”

Joe looks at her and she can hear his smile in a way that makes her shoulders relax. “Can’t say I’m having fun yet. We can’t even get senior discounts at the movies or anything.”

Andy laughs and nods. “Bullshit, right?” She pauses and looks at him, voice softer. “And how are you, actually?”

Joe looks her over, he tries to keep his smile but loses it halfway there, like there are thoughts swimming around in his head that he refuses to look at too closely right now. “I’ll be alright, I’ll figure it out. Had to happen eventually, we all knew that.” He glances at the door again, as if Nicky will come back through it at his will. “More worried about him, though. He’s not good.”

“Yeah, I could tell that from the part where he’s covered in blood.” Andy glances at the door and then back down. “You wouldn’t have been any better if it had been the other way around.”

“Well I’m not talking about if it was the other way around.” Joe says in such a way that it sounds like a slamming door. Andy nods, taking that in silently. _Yes, you would have been unreachable._

The silence lingers for a beat before Andy finishes cleaning him off. “How do you want your stitches? Zigzag, smiley face? Mondrian style?”

Joe makes a small noise of disgust at the last choice and Andy feels more than a little pleased with herself. “I’ll take standard, thanks for the options though.”

-x-

Joe tries to sleep when Andy leaves the room, but it’s easier said than done. For one, he’s in pain, not the worst he’s ever been in by any means, but usually he has the comfort in knowing it’ll go away shortly after it happens, and doesn’t have to try to sleep it off. Secondly, there’s nothing for him to touch. He waits a moment to see if Nicky comes in, debating with himself about getting up and finding him, while knowing he’ll get scolded by multiple people if he does. He elects instead to grab Nicky’s pillow from next to him and pull it in front of him, pressing it against his chest where Nicky should be.

He pushes his face against it and starts to finally doze, his body’s exhaustion finally winning out. He is still awake enough after a few moments to hear the door quietly open and close, and to feel someone lie down next to him. He doesn’t open his eyes but mumbles quietly. “Hi, baby.”

Nicky moves close to him and presses his face against his back, speaking softly. “Ciao.”

Joe turns around to face him, wincing a bit as he moves, and Nicky digs his nails into the sheet. “It’s fine, I’m just…sore. Nothing to worry about.” He looks Nicky over and feels his chest tighten. It is a jarring thing to have someone be a part of your heart for nine hundred years and see an expression on their face you’ve never seen before, but the look on Nicky’s face is new to Joe. It is absent, lost at sea but not in a way where Joe feels confident he can pull him back to shore, to him. He moves a hand to his face and touches his cheek, gentle. Nicky closes his eyes and inhales, and they sit there in the silence of one another for a moment.

“Andy said we should go be old gay men on the beach.” Nicky says after a moment, and Joe snorts.

Joe inches closer to him, running a hand through his hair. “I think she might have something there, I would love to go be an old gay man on the beach with you. We can be friends with all the old, retired widows, they can teach you how to play shuffleboard or something.” Nicky almost smiles and Joe takes it as a sign to keep going. “But you know, with the looks of you, I’d have to watch out, Greta might try to steal you from me.”

Nicky laughs a little, leaning his head against Joe’s arm. “No, they would all be too busy flirting with you. Wanting to touch your arms.” He goes quiet for a moment before opening his eyes to look at him, speaking softer. “I would like that though. To go somewhere where I know you will be safe.”

Joe watches him, still combing his fingers through his hair. Nicky’s eyes were always a dead giveaway of when he cried, even if he tried to be discreet. They didn’t leave anything to the imagination, the redness lingered around them for longer than Nicky would’ve liked to know about. For Joe, it was a way to know how far he would let himself push. Now wasn’t the time to say that neither of them would know what to do if they tried to go live like retirees somewhere, no matter how exhausted they were. He wouldn’t say that he would rather spend whatever time he has left fighting for what needs fighting for, the same way Andy was, the same way Nicky would insist on doing if it was him. Not while the fear on Nicky’s face was fresh, not while he looks like someone ripped his heart out.

Instead, Joe rolls onto his back and sighs, looking up at the ceiling. “I was thinking about Booker.”

Nicky blinks, sitting himself up on one arm. “I am saying I want to have a romantic getaway with you and you are thinking about Booker?”

Joe gives him a look. “Not like that. I was just…”

Nicky watches him, softer. “You want to see him. Just in case.”

Joe sighs, rubbing at his face, looking anywhere but at Nicky. “Yeah. Just in case.”

Nicky swallows, and Joe can feel the energy of his mind drifting to another place. “Okay. We can decide on that later. But it should be because it is what you want to do. We will do whatever you want.”

Neither of them says anything for a moment, these beats of silence common for them. Their silence says what it needs to, sometimes they forget to speak. This one feels as though it is charged differently, that they both want to be soft with one another in this specific space to such a point that they forget to communicate at all, a rarity in their relationship. Joe feels it and it makes his spine tingle uncomfortably, he pulls himself up to sit, biting down a wince. He looks Nicky over and touches his cheek again.

“Hey. We are here, we are both…” He trails off, staring at Nicky’s collarbone. The shirt is too big on him and hangs down around his neck, enough for part of his chest to be visible when he sits just right. Enough that Joe can see a line of purple and blue starting along his neck and down toward his shoulder. He stares at it like it’s a snake or a house on fire, reaching out to touch it, voice faraway. “You have bruises.”

Nicky blinks, not comprehending what he’s looking at. “What?”

Joe shakes his head, still brushing his hand along Nicky’s neck. “You have bruises starting on your collarbone. That…that shouldn’t be happening.”

The last word almost breaks off as his voice cracks, and Nicky reaches and grabs his hand with his, rubbing his thumb along it gently. Nicky looks down at himself, trying to see what he’s seeing until he catches a glimpse of blue bruises against his shoulder. He blinks at them as if they are something curious, not to be afraid of. He looks at Joe, who is still staring like he’s witnessing a forest fire. “You think it is both of us?”

The question almost makes Joe flinch. His own mortality is something he was able to make peace with, something he can work through and understand. Nicky’s is something he has to try to force out of his mind, or it is there all the time, it was there anytime the life went from Nicky’s eyes and Joe was terrified it would be the last time. There is no comfort in the idea that they could both be mortal now, only sheer terror. He looks up at Nicky and met his gaze, eyes a little too bright. The thought of answering is more than he can handle, so instead he just pulls Nicky to him, he holds onto him for dear life.

Joe swallows, taking a breath. “Maybe you just got hurt more than you thought, maybe they’re just leftover and they’ll go away in the morning.”

There is another silence. They’re both smarter than that. Nicky tries to smile, tries to hold onto him and nearly cradle him. “Yes. In the morning.”

**Author's Note:**

> okay SO if you, like teenage me, somehow managed to watch Hancock (2008) a total of three (3) times in one year and were like 'hey this is a great rp idea', then keep on truckin, you're fine. if my experience is NOT universal, here's the rundown. so, it's a bad film, okay? let's leave it at that on the general quality, but one important aspect of the plot is that there are groups of immortals that get paired off into couples, but the kicker is that the closer they get to one another, the more mortal they are. if they get hurt around the other and can't heal? get that person away from them and they will start to. so we're rolling with that idea, but rather than it being something that is always present it is-- like the immortality itself in TOG, a simple spin of the wheel as to when that begins. i am still working out the exact specifics on it as well, but it's a very loose concept based off a bad movie, so i'm gonna do what i want in this Charlize Theron Playing an Immortal Universe (CTPIU)
> 
> anyway, you can also follow me @jcksonmaine on tumblr if you desire!


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